Identity Cards Bill

If I have not reset the Minister’s mind, I sincerely hope that the hon. Lady has done so, but I am not at all confident that either of us will have succeeded. I support Lords amendment No. 70 and want to address amendment (a) in lieu, which the Government intend to support, tabled by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras. The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) made the eminently sensible point, which came straight out of Lords amendment No. 70, that it requires a detailed estimate not just of the revenue and capital costs, but of the expected benefits. He is right to say that a clause without proposed subsection (2)(b) would not be much shorter than one with it. However, it seems that the policy behind Lords amendment No. 70 is much more rigorous and candid, and it would produce a much more sensible and open understanding of the Government’s financial estimates and expectations, than the amendment drafted by the right hon. Gentleman. There is nothing in Lords amendment No. 70 of which the Government should have any fear. Indeed, they have half sold the pass, in one sense, by agreeing to support the amendment. The Government say that the annual running costs are broadly £584 million. Multiply that by 10 and we get the £5.84 billion that people have talked about. For one year, starting in late 2008, the figure would be £5.84 million. The LSE report, which came out last June, put the figures over a 10 year period in a range of £10.6 billion to £19.2 billion. If the Home Office’s annual figure of £5.84 million is representative of costs over 10 years, we get a total of £5.8 billion. The Government say that the fee will be £93 for a passport and £30 for an identity card, and they imply that the fees are driven from the £584 million cost estimate. So far so good, but if the LSE report is right, the fee for a passport could be between £170 and more than £300, and the cost of an ID card could rise to more than £100. As I understand it, the Government have refused—they may have changed their mind today—to cap fees. The implication is that if costs rise, so too will fees. There is plenty of research to show that the acceptability of the ID scheme declines as its costs increase. The opinion polls started off by showing that people were greatly enthusiastic about the scheme, but that support steadily declined as the public came to realise that not only is it not going to assist in the several ways that the Government say it will, but that it will be increasingly expensive. The Home Office has produced some analysis in an attempted rebuttal of the LSE’s figures, but the lines of attack have been about a few specific assumptions. There has not been an open and detailed debate between the LSE and the Home Office. That is a pity, to say the least.I understand that last summer the LSE found some areas on which it had overestimated costs, but also some areas in which it had underestimated costs. In the latest report, which it issued in the middle of January this year, it stands by its original estimates. Subject to the problem that the Home Office has in marshalling accounts of any sort, it cannot be beyond it to produce a report that contains a detailed estimate of the revenue and capital costs arising from the Bill, and it cannot be beyond it to produce a statement in the format of resource accounts, a statement of cash expenditure, and a statement setting out the material assumptions that were made in preparing the cost estimate. Nor can it be beyond the Home Office to provide the necessary subsidiary detail of the cost estimate, as set out in proposed subsection (4)(a), which states: "““the actual costs incurred in the period from 26th April 2004””," which is when the original Bill was published, "““to the date to which the cost estimate is prepared””," and in paragraph (b), which states: "““the costs that are estimated to be incurred during a period of 10 years after the date to which the estimate is prepared””" or such longer period as the Secretary of State may determine. All of those are things that accountants have to do all the time. They are all projects which, as the hon. Member for South Derbyshire said, are commissioned by business men and women in far smaller operations than the Home Office and, probably, in far bigger operations. It is not an unusual accounting exercise, and it is extraordinary that the Government are reluctant to undertake it. The Government say that there is a better idea in amendment (a), which the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras has tabled in lieu of the Lords amendments. I shall not cite the entire amendment save subsection (4), which is where the cogency of his argument falls to pieces: "““If it appears to the Secretary of State that it would be prejudicial to securing the best value from the use of public money to publish any matter by including it in his next report under this section, he may exclude that matter from that report.””" The amendment leads us down a path of wonderful expectation—at last, a new Labour Government are going to be candid about their extraordinary project on identity cards and the national identity register—only to hand over to the Secretary of State the subjective ability to pull the report if he does not find it convenient. I urge the House not to be mollycoddled into thinking that the preceding provisions will ever be delivered if subsection (4) remains part of the right hon. Gentleman’s amendment. Even if the subject is dull and uninteresting, this is an important area of debate. The supply of Government money from public funds—from our constituents’ pockets—should be controlled by the House, and the Government should make clear to the House what they intend to do with our constituents’ money. They have never provided us with sensible estimates of the capital or revenue costs, still less the benefits, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow implied. Now that the Government are on the retreat on compulsion under clauses 6 and 7, it is time that they went a little further and condescended to do justice not only to the House but to the wider public by providing them with access to their thinking and their methodology on those huge costs. Whether they are £5.8 billion or £20 billion over 10 years, the principle remains the same. We are entitled to know—we have a duty to know—and the Government have an obligation to disgorge that information.